U.S. Navy Ship Collides With Tanker Near Strait of Hormuz

The guided-missile destroyer USS Porter was damaged in a collision with the Japanese owned bulk oil tanker M/V Otowasan in the Strait of Hormuz, on Aug. 12, 2012. Source: U.S. Navy/Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class, Jonathan Sunderman via Bloomberg

Aug. 12 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Navy said one of its
guided-missile destroyers collided with an oil tanker near the
Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf.

The collision between USS Porter and the Panamanian-flagged
bulk oil tanker M/V Otowasan occurred at about 1 a.m. local
time, Bahrain-based U.S. 5th Fleet spokesman Lieutenant Greg
Raelson said in a phone interview today. The collision was not
combat-related and overall damage to the ship is being
evaluated, he said.

Strait of Hormuz is a narrow waterway carrying a fifth of
the world’s traded oil that Iranian officials have threatened to
block in retaliation for sanctions targeting the country’s
nuclear program. The U.S. Navy has said it would move to stop
any Iranian attempt block the waterway.

The tanker, owned by Tokyo-based Mitsui OSK Lines Ltd., can
hold 2 million barrels of crude oil and is 95 percent full,
according to ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg. The
vessel loaded at Mesaieed in Qatar and was sailing to Fujairah,
the region’s largest refueling port in the United Arab Emirates,
the data show.

“We have had no reports of any spills or leakage,” 5th
Fleet’s Raelson said.